Seeing the unseen boundary behind you: Predicting the out-of-bounds of flick serves in playing badminton doubles

Previous research on affordance perception has shown that elite athletes can relate the environmental features to their motor abilities to detect the opportunities for action. In playing badminton doubles, experienced players can often anticipate whether a flick serve will go out-of-bounds or not. A field study was performed to examine if such an ability was associated with a developed affordance perception. Twenty-two players with and without badminton playing experience were asked to play a receiver on court to judge without looking back whether a flick serve was out-of-bounds in both standing and retreating conditions. Forty flick serves were randomly delivered to either inner or outer rear corner of the receiver's box and land adjacent to the back service line. Each player's ability to reach high and retreat backward with a racquet was assessed on court. The results showed that predictions were better in the inner direction than the outer direction, but experienced players were more sensitive and conservative overall. Playing experience appeared to be a consistent predictor for judgment accuracy. In identifying the affordance information that could have been utilized by players for accurate predictions, only experienced players demonstrated the ability to utilize both body-scaled and action-scaled affordances effectively and reliably for better predictions in both standing and retreating conditions.